


Small, Snakey Snore (ILLUSTRATED)

by GayDemonicDisaster (scrapheapchallenge), Yvesriba



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: ACE ineffables, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Awake the Snake (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fluff, Gen, Mention of COVID-19, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens), but not explicit stuff just general, mention of coronavirus stuff, mention of epidemic, mention of lockdown, snakey wakey, wake the snake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26775106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapheapchallenge/pseuds/GayDemonicDisaster, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yvesriba/pseuds/Yvesriba
Summary: After Neil Gaiman saredthis poston twitter regarding whether Crowley is awake again yet, we decided some fluff was in order to cheer people up. SFW fluff, ACE ineffables. Mention of some general pandemic stuff but no more than Neil wrote.Yvesriba asked GayDemonicDisaster “Feel like writing a little script for me to illustrate later today?”In typical writer fashion, GDD interpreted this as “would you mind writing me a short fic?” and promptly churned out over 1k words of fluff…A bit like the winking nuns, this was not what Yvesriba had intended, which was “a couple of lines of dialogue for a 3 panel comic.” Something got lost in translation somewhere...But it was decided that illustrating a little fic was also fun, so we did this instead.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 78
Kudos: 134
Collections: AwakeTheSnake





	Small, Snakey Snore (ILLUSTRATED)

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley has been asleep for MONTHS so his hair has grown out and he's a bit beardy. Aziraphale has been following lockdown rules to the letter and so hasn't been to his barber in a while either, hence his adorable little Sheen-esque ponytail. They're both adorable scruffs.

Crowley pulled a face as his phone alarm went off. He’d already snoozed it a couple of months. He glared at the screen. 1st of October. Ugh. He could really go for another few days at least - a week or two ideally. 

But… Aziraphale would be bound to be fretting. Crowley yawned unnaturally wide then clicked his jaw back into place and cricked his neck, stretching his entire lithe body sinuously. Surely everything had to be over by  _ now?  _ Rather than turning on the TV and being assaulted by a barrage of sensationalist news, he picked up his phone and called the bookshop, still yawning and rubbing his eyes.    
  
[ ](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5720216b4c2f85be7fab89f6/1601610414646-HFQ0KE598UAYIO2GEYR8/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kIIFsYAJJX10OgNkc4SuD20UqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKce0j9vvU4chI_bB_CjBNrJapSKkBorzMUDpE1NYw5XxnDgGKGBETQKcT3bo-auxwM/01+C+WAKES+UP1.jpg?format=500w)

“I’m afraid we are still very much closed,” Aziraphale began

“It’s me.”

“Oh,  _ Crowley!” _ Aziraphale’s beaming smile was  _ audible. _ Crowley soldiered on. 

“Fill me in, how bad is it? The world still shit?”

There was a worried pause. 

“Aziraphale?”

“I’m still here, sorry dear boy, I was just trying to think how best to begin…”   


“That bad, is it?”

Another pregnant pause.

“...I’m afraid so. You know all that talk about a second wave?”

“Not really, been asleep, but go on.”

“Well it was postulated that there would be a recurrence of infection and unfortunately it does seem to have happened, we aren’t  _ actually  _ in official second lockdown  _ yet,  _ well not in London anyway, although several other areas are, and the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London are in talks about…”

[   
](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5720216b4c2f85be7fab89f6/1601610439081-JD07H87XRDE1QUILVIF8/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kIIFsYAJJX10OgNkc4SuD20UqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKce0j9vvU4chI_bB_CjBNrJapSKkBorzMUDpE1NYw5XxnDgGKGBETQKcT3bo-auxwM/03+A+and+C+on+Phone1.jpg?format=500w)

Aziraphale wittered on with facts and figures, all extremely depressing. He waffled on about a ‘rule of six’ and the inventive ways in which humans were trying to circumnavigate the rules and find loopholes, household mixing, pubs opening, and then being told to close again by 10pm, track and trace apps, and so much other chaos that Crowley found himself utterly lost. His eyes began to close again and the phone started to slip. At least until Aziraphale’s voice sharpened up again as he remembered a point he’d forgotten, yanking Crowley briefly back into consciousness. 

_ If this were the old days, _ Crowley thought, _ I’d have a commendation for the  _ masks _ by now. A small, uncomfortable thing that human beings can do to keep other people and themselves safer, turned into a giant politicised shouty mess. Brilliant. Probably I’d have a plaque. But of course, they don’t need demons to come up with stuff like that. ‘ _ Hell is empty. All the demons are here…’

[ ](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5720216b4c2f85be7fab89f6/1601610458052-275K6GHMI1F92UGOXDXY/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kIIFsYAJJX10OgNkc4SuD20UqsxRUqqbr1mOJYKfIPR7LoDQ9mXPOjoJoqy81S2I8N_N4V1vUb5AoIIIbLZhVYxCRW4BPu10St3TBAUQYVKce0j9vvU4chI_bB_CjBNrJapSKkBorzMUDpE1NYw5XxnDgGKGBETQKcT3bo-auxwM/04+All+the+Demons+are+Here1.jpg?format=500w)

He found himself drifting again. 

“... and so it really is all still somewhat of a mess, not to mention chaos across the pond.”

“Don’t even start, Aziraphale, I don’t want to hear it. How can this all be getting worse? Humans are meant to be  _ good  _ at fixing things, how can they be letting it get so bad? They’re inventive buggers, I gave them the damn apple in the hopes they’d put the knowledge to good use, not squander it and turn into… what did you call them again?”

“‘Covidiots’, I believe is the cultural term applied to those who are hampering progress at the moment.”

[   
](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5720216b4c2f85be7fab89f6/1601610473053-O4ZZ1IHVF14J40AYYRGG/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kFQQgP34qnCpeHaeAOzTt7pZw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZamWLI2zvYWH8K3-s_4yszcp2ryTI0HqTOaaUohrI8PICHnXC1b9smDvYLPdL-DS7U1pkhCtl83kemXd5r3C5ngKMshLAGzx4R3EDFOm1kBS/05+COVIDIOTS1.jpg?format=300w)

“Yeah, them.” Crowley yawned again, loud enough that Aziraphale could hear. “This was not worth waking up for, Angel.”

“I’m sorry, Crowley.”

“‘S not your fault, Aziraphale, but I have precisely no interest in staying awake under the current circumstances. Besides, it’s autumn, getting a snakey instinct to hibernate.”

“You never have before.”

“There’s a first time for everything. Catch you later, Angel.”

“But Crowley…”

But there was a dial tone, he’d hung up. 

In Crowley’s flat, there was a small, snakey snore.

* * *

Aziraphale stared at the receiver indignantly. It wasn’t like Crowley to be so abrupt and rude, but then he’d never been much of a morning person. Aziraphale put the phone down and gazed around the shop despondently. He was starting to see Crowley’s point, if he was perfectly honest. 

He made an executive decision. He picked up the phone again and called Crowley back.

“Wzzt?”

“Crowley, it’s me.”   


“I  _ know  _ it’s you, Aziraphale, what’s up, when is it?”

“Only about 2 minutes after you hung up.”

“Unless you’re going to tell me it all got fixed in those intervening 2 minutes I’m still going back to sleep.”

“Crowley, wait…, please?”

The demon picked up on an inflection in Aziraphale’s voice. There was a tinge of sadness, yearning, or something on the end. It was a voice that Crowley couldn’t leave hanging.

“You ok?”

“...No. Not really. I’m not.” Aziraphale drew breath. “Crowley, you have no idea how lonely it’s been, I haven’t so much as shaken hands with a single living soul since March. There’s no humans around and normally they’re everywhere, I can feel flashes of love wandering around - it’s why I love living in a city - so much love all over the place, but now there’s nothing. My soul can’t take it anymore. I need to feel that, Crowley, all angels do. We wither without it.”

“What d’you need, Angel?” Crowley asked softly. 

“In all honesty, Crowley. You.”

“Me?”

“May I come around, and ride out the rest of this whole mess with you? I’m allowed now. I’d quite like to try out this whole ‘hibernating’ business, if you’d show me how?”

“Angel, you know I’d do anything for you, of course you can come over. You want to  _ hibernate?” _

“It does sound like a delightfully cosy thing to do now the nights are drawing in and everything is getting colder. And I can’t think of anyone I’d rather hibernate with than you, my dear.”

Crowley was perplexed, but not about to turn up the opportunity to finally see Aziraphale again. “Sure thing, Aziraphale, come on over.”

Not willing to waste any time, lest Crowley change his mind or fall asleep again, Aziraphale snapped his fingers and arrived at Crowley’s bedside in an instant, having dressed himself in a pair of tartan pyjamas in the process. 

“So, how do we begin?” He asked, brightly. Crowley blinked up at him in sleepy surprise, momentarily lost for words. 

“Well… get relaxed really. C’mon.” He shifted over to one side of the enormous bed and pulled back the thick soft duvet covered in fine Egyptian cotton charcoal grey sheets, patting the memory foam mattress invitingly. “Get in, Angel.”

Aziraphale lay down and Crowley flicked the duvet over him so he could snuggle under it. “Comfy?” The angel nodded with a smile. “Then just close your eyes and let yourself drift.”

“Is that it?”

“Well, yeah. You never tried sleeping before?”

“Not successfully, no. I just lay there and stared at the ceiling but nothing happened.”

“Oh. Hm.” Crowley wasn’t sure how you taught someone to sleep. Something occurred to him. “Hang on, you said angels wither or something if they don’t get to feel love around them, if you’re stuck in here with me you’re no better off really. Wouldn’t you be better off finding a way to be closer to the humans?”

Aziraphale turned his head to smile at the demon warmly. 

“Oh Crowley, it doesn’t necessarily have to be  _ human  _ love I’m in the proximity of.”

“Huh?”

“Crowley, you are the most powerful source of love I’ve ever met, and just being near you fills me up far more than a hundred humans being around me.”

Crowley blushed. 

“You knew, huh?”

“Of course, Crowley. Why do you think I adore being with you so much my dear?” 

The demon smiled bashfully, a look that Aziraphale had never before seen on his face, making him chuckle warmly. 

“I do hope you don’t mind?”

“Mind? Of course I don’t mind! Tell you what - you soak up all this love then, so long as I get to soak up your excess body heat? Snake’s gotta keep warm y’know.” He winked

Aziraphale wrapped him up in a hug and laid his head on Crowley’s chest. “Of course, you splendid sleepy serpent.”

It turned out to be just what he needed to relax. He could hear Crowley’s slow, reassuring heartbeat thudding gently, and the steady rise and fall of his chest as the demon drifted off to sleep, which in turn slowed Aziraphale’s heart and breaths to follow. The constant stream of love rolling in waves off Crowley’s soul filled his own with warmth, and his eyes soon closed. 

The only sound in the room was Crowley’s soft breaths, and soon Aziraphale was sleeping too, just a couple of hibernating supernatural entities, content in one another’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> copy of Neil's post if for ease of viewing:   
> \---------  
> "ineffable-yikes asked:
> 
> So, now that it's October, is Crowley awake yet???"  
> \---------  
> "If you can call it waking. I think he’s up enough to phone Aziraphale and ask if it’s all over yet? I do not think Aziraphale’s answer about how we aren’t actually in the official second lockdown yet, or the tone of voice in which it is delivered, followed by Aziraphale’s helpful explanations about the Rule of Six, Household Mixing, or pub opening times, did much to get Crowley out of bed. And he’d put down the phone with a sigh.
> 
> If this were the old days, Crowley probably thought, I’d have a commendation for the masks by now. A small, uncomfortable thing that human beings can do to keep other people and themselves safer, turned into a giant politicised shouty mess. Brilliant. Probably I’d have a plaque. But of course, they don’t need demons to come up with stuff like that. Hell is empty. All the demons are here…
> 
> And then, just a small, snakey snore."


End file.
